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In theory, ACOs are groups of providers that band together to lower the cost of health while maintaining its quality by using various tools in the value-based care (aka population health) toolkit: care coordination, data analytics, avoidance of low-value services. But a study published in this month’s…

Ezekiel J. Emanuel’s Prescription for the Future is true to its title and proposes a five- to 10-year agenda for transforming expensive, wasteful American health care into a system that delivers high-value care. This is a qualitative book based on case studies that identify and systematize how to improve quality, patient experience, and cost.

As expected, pharmacy costs increased with the introduction of this new treatment in a market dominated by over-the-counter and generic treatments. On the other hand, outpatient GI-related and irritable bowel disease health care resource use and costs substantially decreased among commercial and Medicare patients following linaclotide treatment initiation.

Mistreated is a comprehensive and brilliant analysis of American health care by Robert Pearl, the CEO of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group. The book’s subtitle aptly summarizes the author’s point of view: “Why We think We’re Getting Good Treatment–and Why We’re Usually Wrong.”

Hemlibra demonstrates how far antibody science has progressed. Genentech’s drug, approved late last year, connects two clotting factors to prevent the devastating bleeds in hemophilia patients with inhibitors. The high price may be offset by avoided costs in patients with factor VIII inhibitors.

The rate of developmental disabilities for children ages 3 to 17 in the United States rose from 5.76% in 2014 to 6.99% in 2016, according to the CDC. The prevalence of children who had been diagnosed with a developmental delay other than autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability also increased from 3.57% to 4.55%.

Even though enrollment in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) increased nearly sevenfold over the last 10 years, the plans did not “reduce spending on low-value health care services that offer unclear or no clinical benefit and represent a significant source of waste,” according to a study published…

Two men are the same age and they’ve both been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. One was diagnosed 10 years before the other, though. The man with the earlier onset of type 2 diabetes has about a 30% to 60% greater risk of dying from any cause.

When it comes to heart attacks, additional health care spending was only weakly associated with lower case-fatality rates, according to a study of Medicare patients. What did make a difference to researchers was coronary angioplasty on the first day of heart attack patients’ hospitalizations.